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155 stories matching auction
- The Auction Mania in Seattle
A jewelry merchant's retirement sale sparks a reflection on the city's obsession with bargain hunting and the reality behind the storefront liquidations.
- The Apple Auction Wars
New York auctioneers hit back at claims that they 'slaughtered' the prices of Washington-grown apples.
- The Auctioneer’s Audacity: A Watch and a Pen for Gold
Three local men face fraud charges after allegedly selling worthless gold-washed trinkets to unsuspecting buyers under the guise of a legitimate auction.
- The Great Delinquency: Snohomish’s 1878 Tax Auction
A sprawling list of property seizures offers a rare window into the instability of early Snohomish settlers, who faced total loss of their homesteads for debts as small as twenty-two cents.
- The Feast of Lots: Seattle's Jewish Community Celebrates Purim with an Auction of Sacred Letters
At the Hinckley block, the Orthodox congregation dedicated a new Torah scroll and auctioned off its letters to fund education.
- The Foreclosure Auction: Snohomish’s Housing Crisis in 1876
As the Territory of Washington grapples with economic instability, three separate Sheriff's sales are scheduled for January 1877, putting local homes and land on the block for unpaid debts.
- Bags of Gold and a Streetcar Auction in Tacoma
A sheriff's auction outside the Pierce County courthouse transfers the Point Defiance end of the street railway to General Electric for $82,000—with $100,000 in gold sitting in a hack.
- The City Auctions Everything for Charity
Seattle residents gather at a South Second Street storefront to auction off household goods to aid the city's needy.
- The 1878 Great Seattle Tax Auction
Before the skyline, there was the spreadsheet: A massive public auction of delinquent Seattle properties reveals the names, debts, and land-holdings of the city's pioneer founders.
- Seattle’s 1878 Auction of Delinquent Tax Properties
When the city's growth outpaced its residents' pockets, dozens of Seattle properties were put on the auction block to cover delinquent taxes.
- Seattle Sheriff's Auction Over an 1878 Debt
Legal notices from 1878 reveal a stark trail of property foreclosures, sheriff's auctions, and financial upheaval in the early days of King County.
- The Sheriff's Auction of 1878
Public auctions at the King County courthouse reveal the financial fragility and land speculation common in early Seattle.
- The Auction of a Widow’s Legacy: Seattle’s First Real Estate Sale
In May 1882, the Probate Court ordered the liquidation of Mary A. Smith’s estate, marking one of the earliest recorded public land auctions in Seattle’s history.
- Sheriff's Auction: King County Land Sold to Settle a Debt
A 1878 legal notice reveals a grim snapshot of early King County land struggles, as a riverside homestead goes to auction to satisfy a debt.
- The Real Estate Auction That Built Seattle’s First Suburbs
In March 1889, just months after the Great Fire devastated downtown, executors of James Crawford’s estate sold off dozens of city lots in a public auction at Occidental Square. These parcels would become the foundation for neighborhoods like Judkins and Bellevue.
- The Stray Horse of Fourth and Terrace
A mysterious black mare, unclaimed and alone, faces the gavel at a police-led auction in downtown Seattle.
- The Sheriff's Impoundment Auction
A stray horse and a bell-wearing sheep are slated for public auction on Washington Street, as the city cracks down on roaming livestock.
- The Great Block River Auction of 1876
A sprawling public sale in the countryside south of Seattle offers a snapshot of pioneer life, livestock, and the rhythm of late 19th-century farm commerce.
- The Fruit Market Meltdown
Kennewick's fruit growers faced a financial disaster as over-ripe shipments caused market prices to collapse in the Midwest.
- The Globe-Trotter, the Elks, and the $5,000 Wager
A Boston telegram called Paul Jones a fake. Seattle's own reporting found a Harvard man circling the world on a wager — and turning a paper suit into a sellout lecture.
- A Christmas Auction That Fell Short—and a Mother Sent Home
Donations expected to bring $600 fetch only $158.40, but the Bureau of Associated Charities still outfits 100 families and buys a destitute mother a ticket to Kansas City.
- The 'Toe Social' of Tacoma
A mischievous fundraising dance where bachelors bid on mystery partners based solely on a glimpse of their feet.
- The Watches, Pipes and Toothbrushes of the Unclaimed Dead Go Up for Auction
Two years of the coroner's unclaimed effects — purses, cuff buttons, knives and one gold timekeeper — will be sold at the courthouse door on July 7. Their owners died violently, died poor, or were pulled from the bay and written down as 'unknown.'
- The Puyallup Reservation Goes on the Auction Block
In a Tacoma storefront, commissioners began selling off 1,000 acres of Puyallup Indian land — and a brick company snatched up the valuable clay first.
- The State Secures the Land for the University of Washington
A public auction on the shores of Lake Washington clears the path for the university's move from downtown to its current campus.
Also about this, in other words
- The Sheriff’s Auction: Losing the Land in Snohomish
A legal notice from 1878 reveals the harsh reality of frontier debt, as a local resident faces the forced sale of his 120-acre homestead to satisfy a court judgment.
- The Auction Block of 1878: A City’s Property Under the Hammer
While Seattle’s Common Council met to approve small municipal expenses, the sheriff was busy auctioning off downtown blocks to satisfy debt in the growing territory.
- The Sheriff's Auction at the Courthouse Steps
A legal notice from the August 1886 Seattle Daily Post-Intelligencer reveals the stark reality of property forfeiture and the machinery of debt in pioneer-era Washington.
- A Railroad, a Tide-Land Tract, and an Elevator Go on the Auction Block
A bond debt forced the sheriff to sell the Terminal Railway Elevator Company's tracks, tide land, West Seattle elevator and warehouse, and franchise at the courthouse steps.
- The Unclaimed Inheritance of James O. Libbey
A public auction on the Seattle waterfront promises the sale of over 100 acres of land from a local estate, marking a fleeting moment of property transfer in the frontier city.
- The Forgotten Lots of a Frontier Estate
A public auction notice reveals the mid-19th-century land holdings of the late James O. Libby, offering a glimpse into the early real estate speculation of the Puget Sound region.
- The Sheriff’s Auction of the Timber Lands
In 1878, a massive Snohomish County land liquidation reveals the brutal economics of early Washington territory development.
- The Apple Market Revolution
A local lecturer urges Kennewick fruit growers to bypass traditional middlemen and adopt large-scale auction houses to fix stagnant apple prices.